The Sorrow of War

Bao Ninh

Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War is a hauntingly powerful Vietnam
war novel. Much of it is clearly autobiographical, and the blurred
distinction between the narrator and the protagonist, Kien, eventually
collapses. It is structured as a series of reminiscences, jumping
backwards and forwards in time between the events most salient in
memory, events which take on a different hue each time they are
examined. Kien looks back not just at his ten years at war, but at
his final days at school, his work with an MIA team after the war,
the slow disintegration of his life since, and the solace he finds
in his writing. The Sorrow of War manages to convey not just the
immediate horrors of war, but also the emotional damage it wreaks and
the dislocation of lives it causes; it is one of the best war novels
I have read.